Deep space explorers: The Cultural Legacy and Historical Memory of Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2, from the Pale Blue Dot to SNL

Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 have the distinction of being the only human-made objects to have left or be on track to leave the Solar System (other than the recently launched New Horizons mission). While their scientific work is significant, the history of these four missions reveals a deeper cultural legacy. One of the primary public faces of these missions was science communicator Carl Sagan. By exploring how Sagan defined the significance of these missions in his work, we reveal the impact of these missions on our collective imaginings of spaceflight and space exploration (i.e. “astroculture”). We find that the twin Pioneers and Voyagers inspired self-reflexive ideas of human isolation and fragility within the cosmos, introduced communication with extraterrestrials as a serious aspect of spaceflight efforts, and supplemented the image of the astronaut with the robotic probe as the symbol of the human spirit of exploration.

Excited State Photochemically Driven Surface Formation of Benzene from Acetylene Ices on Pluto and in the Outer Solar System

NASA’s New Horizons mission unveiled a diverse landscape of Pluto’s surface with massive regions being neutral in color, while others like Cthulhu Macula range from golden-yellow to reddish comprising up...

Dynamical environments of MU69: a state of chaotic clearing

The second (after Pluto) plausible target object for the New Horizons mission is 2014 MU69. It is a classical TNO, a primordial contact binary. Identifying any material in the vicinities of a target object is of an especial concern for planning cosmic fly-byes, as it is hazardous for a space probe. Luckily, no such material has been reported for MU69 up to now. The point of our report is that this lucky absence is just a dynamical consequence of the physical nature of MU69. Spinning gravitating dumbbells create zones of dynamical chaos around them, and this has a clearing effect: any material put in orbits around a rotating dumbbell (e.g., any material ejected from its surface) cannot be long-lived in such zones; it either escapes into space, or returns to the parent body’s surface. As the orbiting matter is removed in this way, a spinning gravitating dumbbell clears its vicinities. We show that MU69 is able to create such a clearing, making itself a safe and hospitable target for a space mission. Therefore, the guest probe is expected to be safe on arrival.

First Mission to Pluto

The complex and contested origins of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, launched by NASA in 2006, provides a window on how space science policy has been formulated in the United States before and after the turn of the twenty-first century, and how the shifting network of institutions that support and shape space science have changed since 1989. Those decades have so far been little studied except by policy scholars seeking lessons from the NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin’s attempt to force a small-spacecraft technological revolution on space science in the 1990s. The New Horizons case study reveals a shift in the balance of power around 2000 among the important players in the field, increasing the influence of non-NASA actors—notably Congress, science groups, and planetary-exploration lobbies. In addition, the origins of New Horizons reveal how contingent the emergence of a particular space science mission can be.